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Index / Languages / Turkic /
Iran / Languages /
Azerbaijani
Also called: Azeri
Altaic Turkic language spoken in Azerbaijan (national language), Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria by around 23 million.
Some reports make Azeri the largest language of Iran, so is the case with the Ethnologue, which sets it by 1997 to 23.5 million, 7% more than there are Persian speakers. LookLex estimate is much closer to the common figures: 12 million.
There are about 600,000 Azerbaijani speakers in Turkey.
In Iraq, the background figures are highly uncertain: between 300,000 and 900,000 in 1982. A rough estimate for 2008 would make this 1.3 million.
Syrian figures are among the oldest for any group in the Middle East, dating back to 1962, when there were about 30,000. This would permit another rough 2008 estimate at 120,000.
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By: Tore Kjeilen
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